Bulletproofing Your Body for Jiu-Jitsu

When I was new to training, I was getting hurt all the time. Nothing serious, but lots of aches, pains, and tweaks. No surgeries, but the way things were going, it seemed unsustainable and would be nearly impossible for me to make it to black belt.

Now, almost 20 years into my training, I’m feeling great most of the time! And when a problem pops up, I have a lot more tools for managing it than I did when I was younger. Older and wiser is paying off- thankfully. Here are the top six things that have helped me:

1. Mobility Training

I’ve found a lot of relief from aches and pains following Tim Anderson’s Original Strength. I must not truly enjoy mobility training, because I will slack off, but then my body starts to let me know, and I get back to it.

In an ideal world, I’d spend about 10 minutes a day working on it and maybe do a longer 30-minute session once a week, but even going through the mobility work for five minutes a few days a week makes a huge impact.

If Original Strength doesn’t catch your eye, check out some of the Tai Chi movements, FMS, yoga, or whatever you like to restore and maintain your range of motion.

2. Lifting Weights

I made a huge mistake around my purple belt and decided I was going to stop lifting weights, thinking martial arts was all I needed to be fit and strong. On one hand, that was true- I was fit and strong for the task of doing martial arts… but after a few years of not lifting, I started to have a lot of aches and pains that I believe had to do with muscular imbalances.

When I reincorporated lifting, things got slightly better. At first, I was doing the typical gym-bro lifting I’d done prior to my break- lots of reps and sets. Paired with my BJJ practices, I was 100% overtraining and I’d be back to picking up those nagging injuries.

When I made the switch over to Dan John’s Easy Strength Routine, it felt like I found my groove. Lifting 2–3 days a week for 20–30 minutes, five lifts per workout, 10 total reps per exercise made it all… easy. And surprisingly, I made some great gains (I assume because my central nervous system wasn’t fried all the time).

Lifting to balance out the body, lifting to prevent injuries, lifting to perform better at a task (BJJ) — not lifting to be the world’s strongest man or Arnold or anything like that. Short and sweet workouts to leave gas in the tank for BJJ.

And for me, this has not required a gym. I was going to the gym for a while, but then I got tired of spending as much time in the car as I did working out, so I bought a kettlebell. When it got too easy a few months later, I bought another, then some dumbbells here and there, and now the setup is expanding. But when I had that one kettlebell, I was getting it done. Or, you can be like Coach Ryan who does a daily bodyweight routine to stay in great shape.

Oh and one last thing… you’ll make a lot more progress resistance training five minutes a week than you’ll make doing zero minutes. Don’t focus on doing the optimal, just focus on better than before and work your way up to your sweet spot.

3. Rest Days

For most of my 20’s, I was training six days a week. Single guy, no kids, not much stress, not too many other obligations, etc., etc.… I could get after it!

Now, as a family man with an infant, and lots more responsibilities, sometimes the best thing I can do is rest. Occasionally I need to push through and just toughen up, but it’s crazy to me how much better everything flows when I’m coming back from a vacation or another scheduled rest.

I’m not advocating a lack of commitment, but instead some planning on how I can stay on track and keep the progress going while keeping my body from falling apart.

Each week, I’ll plan a floor for myself and a ceiling for my training based on how things are feeling:

• The floor is, unless I’m on death’s door or on a scheduled break, I’m training at least twice.

• If I’m feeling great physically and mentally, I’ll throw in some extra days- up to five.

Normally, I hit three sessions, and I like how I feel and how my progress continues on. But sometimes I’ll run it up to five sessions for the week if I’m enjoying it and feeling good.The next week, though, it’s not going to be another five for me- more than likely.

That’s not to say you couldn’t or shouldn’t do more if your body allows, but with almost 20 years of BJJ mileage on my body, I’m not just thinking about gritting through this week- I’m thinking 20 years into the future.

4. Eating to Build and Recover

I’m no diet guru. I don’t have a system that I love — I eat processed foods more than I’d like to admit. So, I’m not here to preach perfection with diet.

But a few of the questions I ask myself at meal time are:

• What is my protein source in this meal?

• Where are the fruits or veggies?

After that, if there’s some filler… okay, whatever. But if I’m eating leftover pizza and a cinnamon roll for breakfast, with a Coke to wash it down, that’s probably not going to be aiding my body’s recovery from training. That’s probably going to be increasing inflammation and making everything harder the next day.

So, where’s the protein? Where are the fruits and veggies? That’s the base. After that, if there’s a system you have and likes- paleo, Mediterranean, Atkins, etc. – go for it.

5. Tap Early

I always had something hurting in my white belt days. Always!

The thing I regret about back then is that we were training to be tough, we weren’t training to be good. So if someone had me in a submission like an armbar, I was waiting until it hurt to tap out. I remember thinking, man, maybe I can’t do jiu-jitsu because I’m hurt all the time!

But I had a coach point out to me when I was a blue belt that if someone has me in an armbar, there are about five things that went wrong for me to end up in this situation. So instead of trying to be tough at the end, smarten up and work to avoid this situation before it ever happens.

Be tough on thing two of the five that went wrong, where there’s no risk of my elbow getting hyperextended. There’s no shame in tapping out. At the Dojo we’re here to learn. Sometimes we’re learning what to do, other times we’re learning what not to do- and when we’ve made some tactical errors, tapping out is what keeps us safe and coming back to training tomorrow.

6. Sleep

I was having some concerns about my blood work a few years ago. Nothing terrible, but things were trending in the wrong way for a few years.

Then in 2020-2021, I had a broken engagement, COVID was putting a hurting on the dojo, I was gaining weight, and things were kinda going sideways in life. When I look back at it, I was probably dealing with some depression and not much support, just because of the limited interaction we were all having with friends and family.

I knew I wanted to get things back on track, so I hired a coach. I remember expecting to learn the secrets because I was paying him a good amount of money. What I learned was: the secret is, there are no secrets.

He’d ask me, “How’s your sleep?”
“Not great.”
“You know your body repairs itself when you sleep, right?”

Missing out on that sleep was affecting my weight, my blood profile, my ability to deal with stress- on and on.

When I started going to bed earlier and working to improve on some of the sleep hygiene stuff like:

• Making the room as dark as possible

• Keeping it cool

• Going to bed at the same time (usually)

• Waking up at the same time

• No caffeine past 4 p.m.

• Taking supplements like zinc and magnesium consistently

• Finding the right pillow and mattress (I’m still searching for the right mattress)

…what a difference it all made.

Sleep can be a tricky one because part of the hustle culture I see on social media is, “sleep less, focus on your dreams more.” Or it was a stressful day and now I just want some decompression time, so I’m watching Netflix until one in the morning while looking at used ’80’s Toyota trucks for sale.

I think a lot of us could get the 7–9 hours a night, but are we making it a priority? Part of being bulletproof for jiu-jitsu is recovering, and sleeping is when a lot of that recovery happens.

Thankfully, I was stubborn enough to keep coming back for more when my body was getting beat up, and I was able to make it through to the other side. I can look back and see the error of my ways and do things more sustainably now.

One of my goals as a coach is to try to save you from making a lot of the mistakes I’ve made. Jiu-jitsu really and truly can be the transformative experience that a lot of us are hoping it will be when we get started, BUT we have to keep at it.

And to keep at it, we have to stay healthy.

Will Caldwell

Dojo Kyle

512-504-3354